Adjustable strap type fastening members have many useful applications including the bundling of cables, conduits and other loads. A well known and commonly used article for this purpose is a unitary nylon cable tie having an elongate flexible strap portion and an enlarged head portion with an aperture and a retention member protruding into the aperture. A tip of the elongate strap portion is disposable through the aperture of the head portion to form a loop, and the retention member permits one-way passage of the strap therethrough, wherein the loop is usually tightened about a load disposed within the loop. Some applications require that the cable tie be fastened to a mounting member, and for these applications it is known to configure the head portion of the cable tie with an aperture for receiving a mounting bolt, or to configure the head portion of the cable tie with a barbed member disposable in an aperture of the mounting member.
Other applications require the retention of a load between separate mounting members, but this type of retention is not typically performed by cable ties. In the copper tubing industry, for example, it is known to package pre-coiled copper tubing about a spool assembly made from a corrugated cardboard material assembled during the packaging process. More specifically, pre-coiled copper tubing is disposed about a tubular core having a bottom end fastened on a first disk shaped flange. After the coiled copper tubing is disposed about the tubular core, a second disk shaped flange is fastened on the opposing top side of the tubular core. The tubular core includes a plurality of fingers, or tangs, protruding from its opposing top and bottom sides. During assembly, each finger on the tubular core is disposed through a corresponding slot in the first and second disk shaped flanges. The fingers are then folded over and secured to the disk shaped flanges with staples. The end portions of the fingers are folded again and disposed in a second corresponding slot in the disk shaped flanges. The spool assembly process, however, is performed manually and is extremely laborious since each tang must be aligned with a corresponding slot and inserted therethrough before fastening with staples. The cardboard spools, moreover, have a tendency to deteriorate during shipping and handling, particularly the tangs, which tend to tear along the folds and separate from the staples.
The inventors of the present invention recognize that many fastening applications and the assembly and fastening of spool assemblies including cardboard spool assemblies useable for packaging coiled copper tubing may be performed more effectively with a novel grommet and adjustable strap fastener assembly than with prior art cable ties and fasteners.